It all started with the Mrs. and I having a full-blown case of cabin fever. Being stuck in the house for a long time makes a person realize just how much clutter we have. It felt like our house looked something like this:
Since one person's clutter is another person's treasure, we plan to have a yard sale at some point, but unless we're willing to sit outside in 5-degree weather and six inches of snow for a couple of days (and we're not), it's going to be a few months before we can clear out some of the clutter.
The Mrs. suggested that we try selling stuff on Craigslist. For those unfamiliar with Craigslist, you can post free advertisements, by geographical region, for--among other things--items you want to sell. People in the area in which you live respond to the ads, agree to purchase the items, and then you meet them somewhere to complete the transaction.
So the first item I put on Craigslist was my Playstation 2 and some PS2 games. I wanted a new Wii, so I had no use for my PS2 anymore, and any money I could get for it would go toward the Wii. I also included a couple of Guitar Hero guitars, which were going to be a nightmare to ship anywhere because of their bulk. I posted the price I wanted, and lo and behold, a few days later, someone responded. We worked out the details of the transaction over e-mail, then met in a local Wal-Mart parking lot. I got rid of something I didn't use anymore, I got the cash I wanted, the other person got a video game system and games at a good price, and I didn't have to mess with trying to ship those bulky guitars. Win-win.
I put a few more things on Craigslist, but aside from a few e-mails asking some questions, I didn't get any more interest. I had no way of knowing what my stuff was worth, and I built in some negotiating room into my asking price, so maybe I was trying to sell the stuff for too much money. Or maybe it was as simple as no one wanting my stuff.
After a couple of weeks, aside from the PS2, I still had the same amount of clutter in my house. So I decided to start selling stuff on eBay, instead.
One disadvantage of using eBay is that it costs money to list things. Exactly how much it costs to list things is dependent on a number of factors: what you're selling (there's a flat fee to list something, and it seems to vary depending on what the item is), how many photos you post of the item (the first one is free, but subsequent photos cost 15 cents a piece to post), what your starting asking price is (there's no charge to start the bidding at 99 cents, but if you want a higher starting price, it costs more to list), and what additional features you want to purchase to bring attention to your listing. I didn't add a lot of bells and whistles to my listings, so most of them cost anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar to list.
eBay also takes a percentage of your final sale price. I use PayPal, too, as the way I want to be paid by winning bidders, and PayPal takes a percentage of every transaction I make. Between the two, I'm paying out about 10% of what I get for an item.
And then there's the matter of shipping everything. I planned to sell a lot of CD's and DVD's, so I had to purchase a bunch of padded mailing envelopes. I also wound up having to buy some shipping boxes, since I used up my entire supply of boxes I had saved from Christmas. And I bought some bubble wrap to protect some of the fragile items and electronics I was planning to ship. There's the time involved in packing everything up, plus the gas to the Post Office, and the time spent at the Post Office. But as far as the actual shipping costs are concerned, I required buyers to pay for their own shipping. eBay offers a nice postage calculator that allows the buyer to type in their own zip code, and it will calculate how much postage will be, using a variety of services. If someone wants an item delivered overnight to Alaska, that's fine with me, as long as they pay for it.
The advantage to eBay is that my range of potential buyers went from the Indianapolis metropolitan area to the entire world. (I chose to ship only to the United States, so that I wouldn't have to mess with international shipping, but it still opened up my audience to the entire nation and its territories.)
So for the past week or so, I've been putting a bunch of stuff up for auction on eBay. I started out with a bang. I assembled a collection of 78 CD's from 1980's hard rock hair bands. Stuff like AC/DC, Twisted Sister, Def Leppard, Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Poison, Quiet Riot, etc. I had uploaded all the music I wanted from those CD's onto my computer, so the CD's themselves were just taking up space. The Mrs., who has never understood my love of that kind of music, was a bit skeptical that there was any other human being in the entire galaxy who would want those CD's. I was starting to wonder the same thing after they had sat on Craigslist for a week without any interest for a $50.00 price tag. I put it up for a three-day auction on eBay, and after a couple of days, the lot of CD's was up to $51.00. I was pretty pleased with that. I was getting the money I wanted for them in the first place, and I had the satisfaction of showing the Mrs. that someone else in the world likes the same music I do.
As the final day of the auction wound to a close, the highest bid crept up into the $60.00 range. And then came the final two minutes of the auction. People started bidding like crazy, trying to blindside each other at the last second, and driving the price higher and higher. Every time I refreshed my computer screen, the Mrs. exclaimed in glee, "It's up to $70! $75! $80! $95! $100!..." By the time the auction ended, the final sale price was $140.00. The Mrs., drunk on the thrill of the last two minutes, grabbed my shirt collar with both hands, unwittingly shaking me back and forth a few times. To make sure I was paying attention, she put her face three inches in front of mine and emphatically commanded, "SELL....MORE....STUFF!!"
The next few items we put up for bid resulted in the same experience. Halfway through each auction, we were fairly pleased with the price we were getting for stuff, and then in the last couple of minutes of each auction, there was a frantic spree of bidding, and the price doubled. Sometimes tripled. Every time, the Mrs. nearly came out of her skin with excitement, watching the last two minutes of bidding. I was having fun watching it, too.
Not everything sold for good prices, though. And not everything sold. I made some mistakes along the way that have cost me money, much to my chagrin, but I have learned a lot, too.
For instance, I've learned a lot about the U.S. Postal Service and what they have to offer. I learned about Media Mail, which I had never heard of before. In a nutshell, if you're shipping CD's, books, movies, or other specific kinds of media, you can ship it using Media Mail. It travels at the same speed as Parcel Post, but for less than half the cost. You can read more about it on the USPS's website here. Since I was shipping a lot of CD's, that worked well for the buyer, who could spend less on shipping and more on the item they were bidding on. For instance, the Parcel Post charge on those 78 CD's I sold was going to be $28.00. I sent it by Media Mail--with the same projected arrival date as Parcel Post--for $9.80.
For single CD's or movies, I was offering a flat $3.00 shipping price (the maximum eBay allows you to assess on those items) but offering Priority Mail service. I soon learned that Priority Mail costs a lot more than $3.00. First Class, however, comes in right under $3.00, and travels nearly as quickly as Priority Mail. I had someone in Illinois pay me for a movie on the 9th, I shipped it First Class on the 10th, and he had it on the 12th. First Class postage cost $2.63. Priority Mail was going to be close to $8.00. So I learned that on items where I'm offering a flat $3.00 shipping price, I need to advertise that it will be shipping First Class, not Priority Mail.
I've learned not to be cheap on setting a starting price. eBay allows you to set a starting price of up to 99 cents for free. Starting prices higher than that get charged a fee. So I set the starting bid on most of my auctions at 99 cents, figuring the price would work its way up, and then I've avoided a fee. Well, that didn't always work out very well. I ended up selling several individual CD's for 99 cents. I even had to part with a four-CD lot for 99 cents. Figure that I spent 15 cents to list each CD, 50 cents on the mailing envelope, probably 25 cents in gas to get to the Post Office and back, and eBay and PayPal take about a dime of my profits, I'm only breaking even--or maybe even losing a penny or two--for the time I spent listing the CD, printing off a receipt, packaging the CD, driving to the Post Office, and standing in line there.
I've learned that trying to ship something packaged in an old Priority Mail box by any means other than Priority Mail is impossible, even if you black out the Priority Mail markings with a Magic Marker. That was an expensive lesson to learn. That was the four-CD lot that I sold for 99 cents. He paid an additional $3.00 for shipping. I had to pay $9.00 to send it to him Priority Mail because of the box I packaged it in. Ouch. Only as I was driving home did it occur to me that I should have taken the package back home, wrapped it in brown shipping paper, and then sent it by Media Mail. D'OH!!!
I've learned that CD lots sell a lot better than individual CD's do. I don't have much trouble selling CD's when I group them into a lot of 20 or 30 CD's in a similar genre. But I have failed miserably at selling individual CD's.
I've learned that I have no clue as to what people will buy, or what they'll pay for it. I sold a crappy 2002 computer game that wasn't even very good back in 2002, much less eight years later, for $15.00. I couldn't believe it! I'm not even sure I paid $15.00 for it back in 2002! Then I turned around and listed an album by AC/DC that came out within the past two years, and it was in immaculate condition because I had used it a grand total of once--to upload it onto my computer. I figured I might get $5.00 for it. It didn't even get a single bid. Crappy eight-year-old computer game = $15.00. Relatively new CD by a well-known band that is in "like new" condition = zippo. I don't get it.
I've learned why some of my stuff didn't sell on Craigslist. It was way overpriced. I sold an old digital camera on eBay for less than half the price I was advertising for it on Craigslist. No wonder no one showed any interest on Craigslist. Other items, though, went for a lot more on eBay than I was offering them for on Craigslist.
I've learned to space the auctions out a little bit. I had one day this week where 35 auctions all ended on the same day. I spent hours that night, packaging everything up, and it was quite an ordeal trying to carry it all from my car to the Post Office the next day. And then I held up the line at the Post Office for 20 minutes while I got everything shipped off. So having all those auctions end at the same time turned out to not be my best idea.
I've learned that there are deadbeats on eBay, just as there are in the rest of the world. I'm still awaiting payment for an item I sold four days ago. She told me yesterday that she'd "try" to pay me yesterday, and if not, then she'd "definitely" pay me today. I'm still waiting. If she hasn't paid me by Tuesday (a week after she won the auction), I'll offer the item to the second-highest bidder, who was just a dollar below the winning bidder. If that person doesn't want it, the third-highest bidder was only a dollar below the second-highest bidder. If none of those people still want it, I'll just re-list it on eBay. And then I'll leave negative feedback for the winning bidder. A person's feedback score on eBay is about as important as a person's credit rating is in real life, and getting negative feedback for not paying for an item you won is the worst kind of blow to your feedback score.
I've learned that no matter how specific I am in the description of an item, people will still ask stupid questions that are answered right there in the description. So time has to be set aside to answer these stupid questions in a tone that won't offend a potential buyer. Not all questions are stupid--in fact, I've learned how to write my descriptions better, based on what questions people ask me--but when someone asks me how much it costs to ship the item to them, when there's a shipping calculator prominently displayed on the listing, I want to bang my head against the wall. The all-time dumbest question I've gotten is if a CD I was selling was new or used. The listing said "used" in no fewer than four separate places, including at the very top, in bold print.
I've learned that PayPal holds my winnings on an item until the buyer gives me feedback on eBay, thus indicating that the buyer received the item. Makes sense. That way I can't collect a bunch of money from people and then never send the item. But if the buyer never takes the time to leave me feedback--which has happened in the past--the money sits there on hold for three weeks. After that, PayPal assumes the buyer received the item and has no issues with the transaction, and they release the money to me. It's not a big deal to me, since I'm just selling stuff for extra money, but it's not a good idea to use PayPal if you're selling stuff on Tuesday with the intent of using that money to buy groceries on Friday.
At any rate, in about a week's time, the Mrs. and I have sold $600.00 worth of stuff between eBay and Craigslist. That is well beyond our wildest dreams (and the Wii is paid for!). I'll lose $60.00 of that to eBay and PayPal, and I have another $40.00 or so in incidental expenses relating to packaging materials and my screw-ups in estimating postage, but still...I'll take $500.00 and the space that the sold items left behind. In no time, we're hoping that clearing out the clutter will make our house feel like this:
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